No Sap Here!

As symbolic and timely as celebrating MLK Day was to the celebrating the inauguration of Barack Obama was in January, I noticed a similar serendipitous situation with Friday the 13th and Valentine's Day being back to back. This coupling is better than Lucy and Ethel, chocolate and peanut butter (back when it wasn't such a killer) or Kelly Clarkson and Max Martin- and that is really saying something(...saying something- bop bop shoo be do-wah)!

The irony of a bad luck day paired with the day of cupids, chocolate and roses just feels right, kind of like how the friends who set up Rihanna and Chris Brown used to feel. You've got bad luck and love, back-2-back, the inspiration for 95% of poems and music!

For many, they are both days of dread.

First there is this inane fear of 13. Deal with it peeps. Always going to appear after 12 and right before 14...like clockwork my friends.

So you get through Triskaidekaphobia and neither Jason nor his mother have offed you

**so far, so good**,

but then bang...it's that other crappy day...

The whole awkwardness of others receiving flowers or cards while your desk sits bare ("I do not need tokens of affections to show others that my partner loves me" chants through your head)makes for a clock-watching, office-door closed kind of day. "Happy Valentines Day!" salutations attack from all sides; break rooms, hall ways, restroom stalls be damned- these words ooze through the walls and grab at you, choke you, make you want to retch. What if you are single, or not happy? Can you just punch that person in the throat to shut them up? Is not "all fair in love and war?"

If you love, must you dote? Can't you keep your true emotions bundled up and hidden on the inside, like a man? Nothing bad ever happens with bottled up emotions, it's when you share them you get in trouble, just ask Christian Bale! So keep it inside, learn how to hide your feelings, it's for the best. Refuse to let Hallmark make a mint off of you because of your heartstrings- fight the good fight!

But, if you must flaunt it- beware! Flaunting automatically opens the door for future abuse when you get in an argument/ break-up. We, the non-flaunters, but definitely gloaters, are prepared and waiting to ask how sad you'll be with no cards come next Valentine's Day, or remind you of how happy you both once seemed, "where did it go wrong? You both really seemed to like one another. Gosh this must hurt!"

Yeah, when you least want to hear about it(like most of us on Valentine's Day) we will bring it up **innocently**, of course. Watch me play my poker face.